Police in Taiwan have questioned a total of 12 people island-wide in a program of stepped-up vigilance following last Wednesday’s stabling incident on a Taipei MRT train that killed four and injured nearly two dozen. The police action is aimed at stifling any sign of ‘copy-catting’ or violence in sympathy with the MRT slasher.

A 26-year-old man surnamed Lin was taken into custody by police early Saturday morning in a Chungli hospital after he posted a message on Facebook saying, "Discharged tomorrow, my turn to kill people on the Kaohsiung MRT." Users on the Internet were alarmed by the message and alerted police, who arrested the young man on charges of threatening public safety.

Lin reportedly said that he posted the message because he was bored. He said he found comments on the killing interesting and wanted to get a little network name recognition, but would never kill anyone. He said he had deleted his message five minutes after posting it, but someone had already re-posted it on Facebook.

Police identified Lin as a university graduate currently working in a supermarket. He was hospitalized after fracturing his hand in a motorcycle accident May 17.

Another Facebook poster left a message under the pseudonym "Heavenly Love" saying, "Cheng Chieh took care of the Bannan line, the Danshui Line is for admirers and I’ll take care of the bus routes." Police traced the posting to a 32-year-old big engineer surnamed Tsai in New Taipei City’s Banqiao District and sought him out for question. Tsai said that he was only "venting his emotions" and did not really want to kill anyone, but was charged with public intimidation by police.

Wu Ching-hu, chief of the Chungli police station, explained that a lot of people are edgy and nervous now and this is no time for anyone to make any kind of inappropriate remarks in public, even if they are made in jest. He stressed that such actions are in violation of the law and police are acting on them on a ‘zero-tolerance’ basis in the wake of the MRT killings.